Pretend the shovelglove is an axe, and that the log you're
spliting is a little below knee level. Use your legs to take some of
the strain off your back. Slow down as you approach the imaginary
point of impact. The stop should be smooth, not jerky. Pull straight
back and repeat.

New! After about 2 years of doing this movement,
I've recently started doing a modified form of it as proposed by John
Enzinas here. He's
come up with a great name for it too, which makes it easy to imagine
the distinction vs. regular old wood chopping: "swiss automaton" (the
bell ringing kind). The difference is you just raise the shovelglove
higher than I do in the video, over your back. This simple little
change makes the exercise much harder, and engages a whole new system
of muscles. Is it something that any human being every actually did
during the course of his daily activities? Maybe not. It's a little
exaggerated, hence the name. It's the imitation of the imitation of a
natural movement. Very meta. But what the hell, I like it. Be
especially careful to take this movement slow. You *will* kill
yourself (or severely damage your ceiling) if you do it too
quickly.

Credits: thanks John Enzinas for the swiss automaton
variation and Mike Hillyer for
pointing out a glaring typo on this page.